Yeast as part of Terroir

Interesting. So, the agriculture experiment had sufficient motivation behind it for farmers to keep working at it even though it was a long time not productive enough for the hunter-gatherer types to stay home.
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Why this is so, remains a mystery. Like so much of pre-history.

Does Nissen (or others) say what was done with the early harvest products? If they were all eaten then they were responding to a need for calories but if some were traded to other tribes then perhaps this "farming" is really a commercial enterprise.
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With the absence of any writing from these early settlements (obviously, since writing wasn't invented), it is impossible to say. The archaeological data cannot answer such questions. We do know from the later stages of the settlement period (c.9000-6000 BC) that material goods were traded - there is even some evidence of Baltic amber being found in these settlements, so obviously far-reaching trade was done. But afaik there is no evidence about what was done with farmed goods.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Thanks to the comrades who were kind enough to share the paper with me.

The conclusions are pretty strong--different regions of the North Island (West Auckland, Waiheke Island, and Hawkes Bay) have recognizably distinct yeast populations on grapes. The grape populations are diverse and mostly non-Saccharomyces. They also went back to wineries and sampled 75% converted fermentations, where they unsurprisingly found a lot of Saccharomyces (to be expected in high alcohol environments), in 274 different flavors. Only one of these was identical to a commercial strain, though six others had some similarity. Quite a few ferments had multiple cerevisiae strains active.

I am not terribly surprised, but I think quite a few folks will have their notions (commercial strains always dominate, etc.) overturned.
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I assume this paper is a continuation of Mat Goddard's earlier [NZ based] papers on the same subject one of which was based around the Kumeu River winery and was discussed on eBob in a thread that originated with a post from Kevin Harvey on the 8 Oct last year entitled "It turns out that wild Yeast are.....Wild".

I recognise at least one participant in that thread in this one but that discussion was facilitated by the open availability of the entire paper entitled "A distinct population of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in
New Zealand: evidence for local dispersal by insects
and human-aided global dispersal in oak barrels emi_2035 63..73"

As someone who, despite their relatively tiny presence amidst the enormously greater populations of other easily identifiable yeasts, has no difficulty in accepting that Saccharomyces.cerevisiae and another winery-based favourite Brettanomyces.bruxellensis can have a local, wild presence in the vineyards that feed individual wineries [as well as finding niches in the wineries themselves] these studies provide some extra impetus to those possibilities - as opposed to the apparently overwhelming orthodoxy that, despite the acceptance of the 'wild' nature and presence of many other yeasts on the grapes in the vineyard, those two only have the winery structure and its equipment as the source and explanation of their presence in wine however 'natural' the winemaker intends its production to be.

It has of course been amply demonstrated, where commercial yeasts have been used in a winery, that ferments can begin spontaneously with the [no longer inoculated] commercial yeast later found to have been a substantial part of the fermentation. So one might consider how 'natural' [in the sense of local and wild] a ferment is despite its apparent spontaneity.

However one of the key points in the earlier Goddard paper was that they had carefully tested the winery for Saccharomyces prior to their research and found none which bolstered their hypothesis [despite the fact that it was not the main focus of their study] that the main fermentation yeast/s had come in with the grapes.

The actual words used were: "Local natural isolates of S. cerevisiae are related to a subset of the fermentation strains
What then is the origin(s) of this population? Since we failed to detect any S. cerevisiae in the winery before harvest (winery equipment and walls were sampled, data not shown), we hypothesized that the strains contributing to the ferment were brought into the winery with the grapes and represent members of populations inhabiting the local environment."

Another conclusion, more directly related to the purpose of their research was:
"Of the 172 genotypes of S. cerevisiae contemporaneously isolated from ferments, soil, bark and flowers in NZ, none clustered strongly with any of the 34 sequenced strains isolated from a range of international locations.

We believe this provides strong evidence for a discrete population of S. cerevisiae residing in NZ. Bayesian and network analyses show this NZ population not to be homogenous but structured into a number of clusters.
 
Otto,

I do understand the basic distinction you are making and I think fb was misreading you (or reading you too quickly). But are you claiming that a full writing system must--in principle--be phonographic? Without going into Derrida's critique of phonocentrism (which is more about metaphysical definitions than rule of thumb categories and can be evaded, if not avoided, that way), what about American Sign Language--and for all I know, all deaf sign languages. It is obviously not phonographic, but surely it is a full writing system.
 
Jonathan, what do you mean by phonographic?

ASL is not a writing system but just like a spoken language except that instead of vibrating one's vocal cords, one wiggles one's fingers. Though I was surprised to learn that writing systems, as opposed to glosses into other languages, have been invented for sign language! See the most reliable source of them all!
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Jonathan, what do you mean by phonographic?

ASL is not a writing system but just like a spoken language except that instead of vibrating one's vocal cords, one wiggles one's fingers. Though I was surprised to learn that writing systems, as opposed to glosses into other languages, have been invented for sign language! See the most reliable source of them all!
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I mean by phonographic a writing system that works by signaling sounds rather than concepts, just as you do above.

ASL is, of course, a language, but it is not "just a spoken language," since, in fact it cannot be inscribed in phonetic writing. The writing system noted in Wiki has letters that signal hand signs but they do not signal the language alphabetically. So is that system a full writing system? Could there be a full writing system of ASL? If so, it obviously couldn't be phonetic since it would have to refer to, as you say, hand motions, instead of emitted vibrations. For that matter, why isn't ASL just it's own writing? Is it because it isn't permanent? If so, would a writing system for it simply be a reproduction, now that we have the technology, of the signing?

When I have had deaf students, they, of course, have read English, but they think of that as a different language, not as a transcription of ASL, and, as I understand it, they are right.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
fuck food. brewing was most likely all about concocting a non toxic fluid intake... which is of course, all the more important if your goal is to go a huntin' and a gatherin'

fb.
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I thought the development of beer coincided with the observation of weekly games, hence it would have followed rather than preceded a more settled life style.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Nissen also makes the good point that early agriculture was so haphazard that people had to have other means of getting food as well - so farming and hunting and gathering co-existed in the same community for millennia.
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Interesting. So, the agriculture experiment had sufficient motivation behind it for farmers to keep working at it even though it was a long time not productive enough for the hunter-gatherer types to stay home.
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Perhaps while less productive overall, there was also a lower variance over the course of the year in agricultural production, thus kind of a supplemental "safety net" to the hunting and gathering.

BTW, was early agriculture just intensive gathering? E.G. clear the weeds and brush away from the good plants, reseed and maybe water them?
 
... The notion that the motive force was to make alcohol raises more questions than it answers since if hunter gatherer societies knew about fermentation prior to engaging in agriculture, then they would hardly have to give up their whole way of life just to make that one product.
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Indeed, the overlap between grape growers and deer hunters (boar in France) is still substantial.
 
actually, i was suggesting that anyone who thinks that there is a clear distinction to be made between symbolic cues to phonetic events and symbolic cues to ideas is seriously delusional.

all orthographic systems are parasitic on speech. if you think that a logographic system can go straight from a cartoon of a bird to the idea "bird" without being conditioned on a speech system, you are seriously delusional. at the same time, as you yourself note, more abstract writing systems -- english especially -- fall massively short of being phonetic codes. all orthographic systems intersperse gaps that are not to be found in speech while ignoring many of those gaps that are present in speech. depending on context, all orthographic systems treat sounds that have very different phonetic realizations as tokens of a single type, and sounds that have very similar phonetic realizations as tokens of different types, which means that the deciphering of orthographic type - token relations always draws very heavily on other aspects of linguistic knowledge that people bring to the task of reading. (the problem with chinese orthography is actually that it contains far more phonetic cues than english -- but not enough to be a phonetic recipe, since this is an idea that tilts at far too many windmills; indeed, the phonetic realization of novel chinese words is often harder to guess as a result of all the added detail -- and this makes learning it something of a bugger.)

all of which is just a fancified way of saying that most of the time when you read you need knowledge of the ideas cued by an orthographic form in order to have any idea of the phonetic realization of that form; and that the symbols of a logographic system don't mean much in the absence of the spoken language and the ideas shared by the community of speakers of the language that they were conditioned on. this in turn means that making categorical distinctions between logographic systems that cue ideas and orthographic systems that cue sounds is silly. it only works if you are in the grip of a theory, and even then it only works so long as you are content to hold your nose and not care too much about the correspondence between your theory and reality.

still, i'm genuinely curious: what do you actually think this -- "a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thought" -- actually means? if i'm running to catch a baseball, and i change direction in order to intercept it, is that change in direction not the product of thought? how do i put those thoughts into words? and what about all the sensory distinctions i can make when slurping hooch, but which i struggle to match to appropriate words? or are you going to tell me that "thoughts" here means only things that can be put into words?

fb.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):

I thought the development of beer coincided with the observation of weekly games, hence it would have followed rather than preceded a more settled life style.
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there is reason to think the taste for hooch may be somewhat older than that.

fb.
 
actually, i was suggesting that anyone who thinks that there is a clear distinction to be made between symbolic cues to phonetic events and symbolic cues to ideas is seriously delusional.

all orthographic systems are parasitic on speech. if you think that a logographic system can go straight from a cartoon of a bird to the idea "bird" without being conditioned on a speech system, you are seriously delusional.
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I'm sure the writers of logographic/limited-writing system of what came to be known as Sumerian cuneiform certainly thought of that sign in phonetic terms. But the sign itself contains no phonetic information. And that is a crucial distinction that HAS to be made.

Let's take another limited writing system that we're all familiar with - traffic signs. If you see this sign you will probably be thinking "pedestrian crossing" in your mind because you are an English speaker. I will be thinking "kävelytie" because I'm Finnish. But the phonetics of "pedestrian crossing" or "kävelytie" are not contained in that sign. This is a type of writing system that conveys ideas not sounds. My challenge still stands, if you can't accept this distintion, then write a Shakespear sonnet in traffic signs!

at the same time, as you yourself note, more abstract writing systems -- english especially -- fall massively short of being phonetic codes.
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Wait a minute? Why is English a more abstract writing system? Because it no longer shows similarity to the Phoenician signs that our system is originally from? Because the letter "A" does not look like a bull's head, it's now abstract? Great! That means that Cuneiform is also abstract because once it evolved into a full writing system c.3000BC the signs in most cases in no way resemble pictures.

all orthographic systems intersperse gaps that are not to be found in speech while ignoring many of those gaps that are present in speech.
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Yes. That's right. There is no need to code absolutely everything, writing systems only code the MEANINGFUL differences in sounds.

depending on context, all orthographic systems treat sounds that have very different phonetic realizations as tokens of a single type, and sounds that have very similar phonetic realizations as tokens of different types, which means that the deciphering of orthographic type - token relations always draws very heavily on other aspects of linguistic knowledge that people bring to the task of reading.
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Huh? I've read this now three times and I fail to see what you're trying to say.

(the problem with chinese orthography is actually that it contains far more phonetic cues than english -- but not enough to be a phonetic recipe, since this is an idea that tilts at far too many windmills; indeed, the phonetic realization of novel chinese words is often harder to guess as a result of all the added detail -- and this makes learning it something of a bugger.)
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A lot of this went over my head as well. Novel words in Chinese are difficult because as in all logosyllabic writing systems the same sign can be a determinative, a phonetic syllable or a logogram depending on the context. Once again I can't give an example from Chinese, so cuneiform will have to do. This sign can be a determinative that means that the name of a god will follow in the text. Or it can be a syllable "an" or "il". Or it can be a logogram meaning "sky" so in an Akkadian text it will be read "shamû" (or any conjugation thereof). Is the fact that a same sign can have several different meanings and readings what you were trying to say?

all of which is just a fancified way of saying that most of the time when you read you need knowledge of the ideas cued by an orthographic form in order to have any idea of the phonetic realization of that form; and that the symbols of a logographic system don't mean much in the absence of the spoken language and the ideas shared by the community of speakers of the language that they were conditioned on.
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It is very true. But if this is what your objection of limited vs. full writing system comes down to, it is an absurd and extremely silly idea. You're basically saying that you need to know how to read Chinese to know how to read Chinese! That doesn't alter the fact that Chinese is a full writing system nor does it alter the fact that the distinction between a full and limited system are extremely useful and TRUE!

this in turn means that making categorical distinctions between logographic systems that cue ideas and orthographic systems that cue sounds is silly. it only works if you are in the grip of a theory, and even then it only works so long as you are content to hold your nose and not care too much about the correspondence between your theory and reality.
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Huh? If you still think I'm wrong, go and write that Shakespeare sonnet in traffic signs or mathematical notation or musical notation or any other limited writing system in use! I'll meanwhile write it in cuneiform. We'll then see which writing system contains actual information on sound.

still, i'm genuinely curious: what do you actually think this -- "a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thought" -- actually means?
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It just means that a full writing system can convey all of that. Limited writing systems may give you very exact information - as do mathematical and musical notations - but these writing systems cannot express every thought a human can come up with because they have no information on sound inherent in the signs. Full writing systems, since they convey actual information on phonetics, CAN.

if i'm running to catch a baseball, and i change direction in order to intercept it, is that change in direction not the product of thought? how do i put those thoughts into words? and what about all the sensory distinctions i can make when slurping hooch, but which i struggle to match to appropriate words? or are you going to tell me that "thoughts" here means only things that can be put into words?
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Now you're going into territory that isn't about writing systems and which I know next to nothing about.
 
all orthographic systems intersperse gaps that are not to be found in speech while ignoring many of those gaps that are present in speech.
Click to expand...

Yes. That's right. There is no need to code absolutely everything, writing systems only code the MEANINGFUL differences in sounds.
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nope. skilled readers use written signs as cues to meanings. and the relationship between meanings and actual speech sounds bears no resemblance to the alphabet of phones you arrear to fondly imagine.

the phonetician bob port has put together a very nice page containing a number of helpful review papers and articles on some of the basic science. why not take a moment to peruse them before you make any more wild claims about the phonetic properties of language?

you might also take a look at

Strange W (1995). Cross-language studies of speech perception: A historical review.
In Strange W (Ed.) Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in
cross-language speech research. Timonium, MD: York Press.

it's amazing how much literacy affects people's understanding of speech perception. (to borrow a remark from wittgenstein, "a french politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it words occur in the order in which one thinks them.") it hardly bears thinking about the havoc that immersing oneself in dead languages must wreak on one's intuitions about the way people use signs and sounds to communicate.

depending on context, all orthographic systems treat sounds that have very different phonetic realizations as tokens of a single type, and sounds that have very similar phonetic realizations as tokens of different types, which means that the deciphering of orthographic type - token relations always draws very heavily on other aspects of linguistic knowledge that people bring to the task of reading.
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Huh? I've read this now three times and I fail to see what you're trying to say.
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i'm simply pointing out that the actual sound pattern of language bears no resemblance to the simplistic ideas you appear to have about it. and because you are wrong about the nature of speech phonetics, you are also wrong about the relationship between writing systems and speech phonetics.

still, i'm genuinely curious: what do you actually think this -- "a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thought" -- actually means?
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It just means that a full writing system can convey all of that. Limited writing systems may give you very exact information - as do mathematical and musical notations - but these writing systems cannot express every thought a human can come up with because they have no information on sound inherent in the signs. Full writing systems, since they convey actual information on phonetics, CAN.
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i take it you aren't a musician or a mathematician either?

if i'm running to catch a baseball, and i change direction in order to intercept it, is that change in direction not the product of thought? how do i put those thoughts into words? and what about all the sensory distinctions i can make when slurping hooch, but which i struggle to match to appropriate words? or are you going to tell me that "thoughts" here means only things that can be put into words?
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Now you're going into territory that isn't about writing systems and which I know next to nothing about.
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what did math and music do to deserve their fates? as it is, you claimed that full writing systems can convey all thought. i had foolishly supposed that you had given some thought to what thoughts actually are before you made the claim.

i know, what was i thinking?

fb.
 
and the relationship between meanings and actual speech sounds bears no resemblance to the alphabet of phones you arrear to fondly imagine. [...]why not take a moment to peruse them before you make any more wild claims about the phonetic properties of language?
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I'm talking about writing systems, not spoken languages. And what alphabet am I supposedly fondly imagining?

it hardly bears thinking about the havoc that immersing oneself in dead languages must wreak on one's intuitions about the way people use signs and sounds to communicate.
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We only have the written record; we can't use anything else.

i'm simply pointing out that the actual sound pattern of language bears no resemblance to the simplistic ideas you appear to have about it. and because you are wrong about the nature of speech phonetics, you are also wrong about the relationship between writing systems and speech phonetics.
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Do explain further. I still don't understand what I am understanding wrong.

i take it you aren't a musician or a mathematician either?
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Musician yes. Why?

What I find quite amazing is that someone like you who apparently has given some thought to languages has such outlandish ideas about the theory of writing systems! What I tried to outline is the commonly accepted categorization. This is almost like a biologist debating a creationist! If you have a better system, publish it, get it peer reviewed and accepted by the scientific community!
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
and the relationship between meanings and actual speech sounds bears no resemblance to the alphabet of phones you arrear to fondly imagine. [...]why not take a moment to peruse them before you make any more wild claims about the phonetic properties of language?
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I'm talking about writing systems, not spoken languages. And what alphabet am I supposedly fondly imagining?
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uh. if you stuck to writing systems, you'd be fine. but you keep talking about writing systems in relation to phonetics. and ideas in relation to writing systems and phonetics. and you keep wanting make distinctions based on cartoon ideas.

in language, phonetics are a property of speech as opposed to writing systems. since you fondly assume a direct correspondence between orthography and phonetics, i can only assume that you imagine that alphabetic writing systems map onto a similar inventory of phones. if this is what you think, it's wrong.

if it isn't, then you need to explain how written signs encode phonetic information, and how readers get that information from the code. here's a clue: this is harder than you think.

i'm simply pointing out that the actual sound pattern of language bears no resemblance to the simplistic ideas you appear to have about it. and because you are wrong about the nature of speech phonetics, you are also wrong about the relationship between writing systems and speech phonetics.
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Do explain further. I still don't understand what I am understanding wrong.
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perhaps you need to study the reading list i gave you.

What I find quite amazing is that someone like you who apparently has given some thought to languages has such outlandish ideas about the theory of writing systems! What I tried to outline is the commonly accepted categorization. This is almost like a biologist debating a creationist! If you have a better system, publish it, get it peer reviewed and accepted by the scientific community!
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except, of course, it is you that seems to be positing the supernatural entities and making the fantastic claims about how writing systems specify phonetics and can encode all thoughts. all i'm asking is for a measure of scientific backing for those claims. (actually, in both cases, i'd settle for you actually saying something clear about what you mean as a start: like a good creationist, so far you have failed to offer explanation or evidence, but you have been more than happy to compensate with assertion and the caps lock key.)

as it is, i am not a phonetician (though, actually, i do work very closely with a few) and i wouldn't presume to think that i'm the best person to publish on these matters -- besides, i have other fish to fry. what's more to the point is that i don't need to publish on this: i pointed you to a whole bunch of peer reviewed papers (in journals like language, and the journal of the acoustic society of america) that say exactly what i have been saying. the kind of glib generalizations that people usually make about phonetics when they talk about language -- and the relationship between orthography and phonetics -- simply don't fly when you look at how language actually works. put simply, the commonly accepted categorization is a steaming turd; a vacuous, wooly bunch of half baked nonsense; like religions, it can't offer explanation, nor can it serve as the basis for principled distinctions; at best it can offer comforting just so stories for the incurious.

will it break your heart if i add that just as i know few phoneticians who take phonemes seriously, i also know very few morphologists who take morphemes seriously? the fact is that the logogram / phonogram distinction only makes sense against a background theory that has failed to withstand the accumulation of evidence and is being rejected by the people whose job it is to study these matters in droves. that's science. the kids in the sticks have to play catch up. or burn books.

fb.
 
Pretty deliciously schizophrenic thread here, guys. Forgive me Otto and FB, but I'm gonna digress.

I have sent a bit of time discussing the whole transition from hunter/gatherer issue with Patrick McGovern. My contention, which is not all that different from his, I dare say, is that the transition occurs when superabundance of a desirable and difficult to transport staple is paired with a viable long term storage solution.

Fermentation fits in beautifully. As noted above, we knew the trick for a while before we became civilized, and probably even before we became Homo sapiens. Pick your fermentable - figs - the current leading contender for first domesticated foodstuff - grapes, honey, barley. All of them have periodic superabundance. You can, however, haul all the barley you want around in a basket or an animal skin on a skid. The best argument on behalf of grapes and honey (and proto-wine or -mead) is their liquidity and the resulting challenge of transporting them. When you figure out pottery by lining a basket with clay, now you can make more wine/beer/mead than you can move, and you don't want to leave it. Pinned down by booze. Then again, nobody here can relate to that problem. Proponents of a mead role in all of this also like the fact that now you can store a lot of honey, which, to an early human, is both a rare, out of season sweet and a massive caloric stash with indefinite shelf life - that ferments. This pottery-with-a-lid shit rocks.

Phrased a little differently, if it's gonna be worth figuring out a way to make a permanent building, it damn well better have a wine cellar.

Makes sense to me, but I'm a gullible mofo.

fb (and Otto and Jonathan), the only thing about you that breaks my heart is that I don't get a chance to drink with you.
 
"all orthographic systems are parasitic on speech. if you think that a logographic system can go straight from a cartoon of a bird to the idea "bird" without being conditioned on a speech system, you are seriously delusional."

If you mean by these sentences, all phonetically spelled writing, then the statement is trivially true. If you mean, as your second sentence says, all logographic systems, then the statement is emirically false. Neither mathematics, nor ASL are parasitic on speech, to use your terms. Even Derrida, who would have liked your statement to be true, recognized that what he called phonocentrism was tied forms of language tied to phonetic writing systems (logocentrism he thought to be a necessity of thought). My point, please, is not to get into a discussion of Derrida, but simply to note that even he knew that not all writing or sign systems were parasitic on speech. What this does to your larger argument, to the extent that I can make it out, I don't know.
 
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